


The Time Keepers

by paperstorm



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, First Time, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Romance, Soulmates, YES IT'S ALSO BOTH THOSE THINGS!, are you sensing a theme, yes it's both of those things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-28 21:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30145917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: She bows her head and sinks down to one knee on the floor, waiting until the Leader indicates before she rises. “I believe I have a case.”“Of what sort?”“I am nearly certain. Although of course I cannot be entirely certain, until they are tested.”“A case of what, Qael?” he asks again, sounding tired already. He, or so she has heard, is intolerant of subterfuge.She opens her hand, brushing her thumb lightly over the glistening surface of the Portec. Brilliant images burst forth from it and she steps closer at his long-fingered beckoning.“Soulmates."//Rather than star-crossed lovers destined to be together for eternity, in this story soulmates are what happens when a soul mutates and splits, and in the two halves trying desperately to find each other again, irreparable harm can be caused to the fabric of the universe. When a pair of soul halves are discovered, the Time Keepers are in charge of restoring order.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 22
Kudos: 35





	1. April 27, 2018

She reviews her pitch one last time. She studies the visuals in her presentation, floating in the air before her, glowing in vibrant colors. She rearranges a few images, seeking the perfect combination of order and captivation. If the Leader is bored by her presentation, she may fail to convince him of the need to intervene. If it’s too flashy, he won’t take her seriously. She’s nearly certain of it, now, after the events of the morning on Earth.  
  
The tower is as imposing as ever, as she approaches it with guards flanked on her either side. She clutches the Portec tightly in her hand. The edges of it dig into her palm. Purple mist surrounds the three of them the moment they cross the threshold. They pause, allowing the mist to confirm their identities and relax the security censors. She blinks it out of her eyes and continues forward down the long stone hallway. Her shoes click against the floor and it echoes in the cavernous gallery. She finds the Leader, as expected, in his velvety-black throne at the end of the chamber where he deliberates.  
  
She wonders if he ever leaves it. She’s never seen him do so, or heard tell of anyone who has. Maybe he can’t even walk. The rest of them have legs as humans do but maybe his are merely decorative. In her nervous state, she nearly laughs aloud at the prospect. Then, she steels her expression. They aren’t supposed to take humor in such things. The are the Keepers of Time and Order in the universe, and the manner in which she approaches the Leader today is a serious one.  
  
“Qael,” his deep, ethereal voice intones. It, too, echoes off the walls.  
  
She bows her head and sinks down to one knee on the floor. “Your Grace,” she answers, deferentially, waiting until he indicates before she rises. “I believe I have a case.”  
  
“Of what sort?”  
  
“I am nearly certain. Although of course I cannot be entirely certain, until they are tested.”  
  
“A case of _what_ , Qael?” he asks again, sounding tired already. He, or so she has heard, is intolerant of subterfuge.  
  
She opens her hand, brushing her thumb lightly over the glistening surface of the Portec. Brilliant images burst forth from it and she steps closer at his long-fingered beckoning.  
  
“Soulmates,” she says.  
  
The Leader leans forward. His midnight eyes narrow, roaming over the files she’s put together that glitter in the space between them. “Who are they?”  
  
“James Barnes and Steven Rogers.”  
  
“Provide your evidence.”  
  
“I have been observing them for quite some time. 75 human years, to be exact. I was alerted to them first by the Department of the Unnatural, in their year 1943. There was an experiment that caught their attention.” She waves her fingers, spinning the images around to reveal the bunker where it had taken place.  
  
He squints at it. “What sort of experiment?”  
  
“A human scientist took Steven Rogers, a small, sickly boy, and injected him with a serum that doubled his size and left him with super-human strength and ability.”  
  
“To what end?”  
  
“One of their silly wars. The DOTU determined it was not dangerous to anyone but Rogers himself, but contacted my office about the potential of a different problem.”  
  
“The other boy?” The Leader looks up at her, questioning, and she nods. “If you’ve been tracking them for so long, why is this the first time you’ve come to me?”  
  
“Because they were separated, only two years later,” she explains, spinning the images again, showing him the train, Barnes falling to the canyon far below, and Rogers taking his own life. “They both survived, in some capacity, but they remained apart for many decades. Barnes did not remember that Rogers ever existed. I assumed enough time had passed, and that I was wrong.”  
  
“And now?”  
  
“They reunited, in their year 2014. It should have been impossible. Rogers should not have survived the crash, he was trapped in sea ice for the better part of a human century. Barnes should not have remembered him. But they did.”  
  
The Leader sits back. He folds his long fingers in his lap, and muses. Lips pursing; considering. “You believe there is something more than luck at play, here.”  
  
Gathering her courage, she spins the images again, bracing herself for the impact of showing him the final piece of the presentation. It was not her fault, what happened, but since she’s the only one in the room, she might bear the brunt of his reaction.  
  
His eyes widen and he sits forward again, mouth going slack. “What … is that.”  
  
“A being called Thanos. Only a few human hours ago, he acquired and used the five Infinity Stones to wipe out half of life on their planet.”  
  
“Good heavens,” he breathes, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth. Then his eyes flash in anger. “Why did no one stop this?”  
  
“The humans tried.”  
  
“I’m not referring to the humans, Qael.”  
  
She clenches her jaw. She does not envy the DOTU. She could not say why they were not aware this was happening in time to stop it, but she is grateful to work for a different office, today, given how badly they, as humans say, dropped the ball. “I don’t know,” she says honestly.  
  
“The intervention this is going to require,” he mutters. “The clean-up …”  
  
She must divert his attention back to her presentation. She understands the mess they’re in, but fears something much worse could be coming. Thanos and his gauntlet would be nothing, if she’s correct and the two soul halves are kept apart for much longer than they already have been. Planets have been destroyed, galaxies disintegrated, when disorder of this magnitude is allowed to exist. “Barnes was among them. The victims.”  
  
The Leader, thankfully, does look back at her, and seems to be able to compartmentalize his anger enough to hear her. “Not Rogers?”  
  
She shakes her head. “He lives. If I’m right, and they are soulmates, I shudder to think of what might happen as Rogers tries to get him back, more desperately than he ever has. Or worse, what might happen if Rogers fails to do so.”  
  
“You think the soul halves will take over?”  
  
“They were separated for seven human decades, Your Grace. Torture, for any broken soul. And together again so briefly, before … I don’t imagine they’ll be willing to wait another seven decades. They will destroy everything in their paths to get back to each other.”  
  
“What is your protocol, in this matter?”  
  
He knows it already. She knows he does. He has lived since the creation of time itself, this is not the first time he has given permission for the necessary experiments. Still, he asked, perhaps as a test to make sure she knows the right answer, so she offers the information. “We freeze time on Earth, for as long as it takes. I put Barnes and Rogers into several different alternate versions of their reality. If they find their way back to each other no matter what I do to them, then we know.”  
  
“And then?” the Leader prompts, certainly testing her now.  
  
“We ensure they are not separated again, for the rest of their natural lives, so that when they die, the halves can reattach.”  
  
“Good.” His shoulders relax, seeming satisfied for only a moment before he sits tall and imposing again. “I’m sure I do not need to tell you, Qael, that many other departments will be extraordinarily busy in the coming days with the mess this horrible creature – ” he gestures irritated at the projection where Thanos’ image still glows, “ – has made. There is not, therefore, room for error in your experiments.”  
  
“Yes, Your Grace.”  
  
He turns his face away from her, and Qael understands their conversation has come to an end. She shuts off the Portec, the mechanism pulling the images back into it before it goes dark, and slides it back into her pocket. She bows her head respectfully, and takes her leave. The echo of her footsteps seems louder, as she walks away from him and out of the tower.


	2. November 5, 1943

“What’s our first step?”  
  
Qael breathes.  
  
She stares into the orb. Watching Rogers, in the present, in a place they call Wakanda. At the moment, he’s in the small hut with the clay walls and the thatched roof that had belonged to Barnes for two human years before the snap. It’s been one day, in their construction of time, since half of life on their planet was wiped out. Qael wonders if most of Earth’s population has any idea what’s happened, or if they were simply looking at family members or friends or strangers on the street one moment, and the next moment they were disintegrating to dust before their eyes. It must be pandemonium.  
  
As a Keeper, she understands chaos, and the skill necessary to find order within it. Humans do not always have that ability, at least not in the same way. It is not her job, however, to bother with any of Earth’s other life forms. Only the one she’s currently observing.  
  
Rogers has changed out of his ripped, bloody uniform. He’s in soft-looking grey pants and a shirt with short sleeves that hug the considerable girth of his biceps. There is still dirt in his hair and beard, and on his skin. He hasn’t cleaned himself, merely changed his clothes. She watches him standing in the middle of the hut. He isn’t moving, only looking around with eyes that don’t seem to truly perceive anything before him. There is a length of blue cloth clutched in his left hand. He’s squeezing it so tightly his knuckles have gone white. She watches as he stays motionless for a time, and then walks over to one corner where a mat and pillows are tucked neatly against a wall.  
  
Barnes’ sleeping quarters. Rogers lowers himself slowly, elegantly to his knees on the dirt floor. He reaches out with one shaking hand and runs his palm slowly over the pillow that must have been where Barnes would nightly lay his head. Often, she knows, Rogers would join him, and share that pillow.  
  
Rogers’ fingers tremble. He curls them in, digging the nails into the center of his palm. Then he curls his large body in on itself, settling on his backside in the dirt, avoiding the sleep mat. His knees draw up toward his chest, arms wrapping around them and head falling down against his forearm. The blue cloth remains in his hand. His shoulders shake.  
  
Grieving, she understands. She does not feel emotions in the way that humans do. Her kind have their own set. But she’s observed their species for long enough to recognize grief when she sees it.  
  
“Qael?”  
  
She blinks and shifts her gaze upward, away from the orb and into the amber eyes of her number two – the only being she trusts enough to assist her on this vital assignment. Trex is young, has only been her assistant for a short age, since her last promotion to the Department of Black Hole Regulation. She likes him, though. He’s eager and has proven quite capable on the few mission they’ve run together. The Leader had offered her more help, had suggested an entire team, but Qael knew that would only complicate the mission unnecessarily. Untrained Keepers can make mistakes, in their yearning to prove themselves, and as the Leader made clear, there is not room for mistakes this time.  
  
“What did you ask?” she responds.  
  
“What is our first step?” Trex repeats.  
  
She looks back into the orb. Rogers has only moved to bring the blue cloth in closer to his chest, holding it against his heart, now, instead of dangling from clenched fingers.  
  
“Austria. We send them back to Austria,” she says, making a note of it in a journal where she’ll keep track of their research. “Their year 1943, on their day November 5th.”  
  
“What happened on November 5th?”  
  
“Rogers infiltrated a base operated by their enemies, specifically a very secretive group called Hydra, that most of humanity never knew existed. Barnes was being held captive, there, and subject to experiments.”  
  
Trex nods. He approaches the orb, looking, as she is, at the anguished form of Rogers still wrapped around himself on the dirt floor of a Wakandan hut. “Do we let it play out? See if anything changes?”  
  
“No.” She shakes her head. “I know that’s usually where we begin, but I’d like to start right away with making changes in this case. And observing the outcome.”  
  
His grey eyes widen in surprise. “You’re that certain? That they are soulmates?”  
  
“I am as certain as I can be, without this testing. I will be extraordinarily surprised, if I’m wrong. In fact, it might be worse, if I’m wrong. It could mean there is something at play here that even we don’t understand.”  
  
“Alright. What changes, for our first attempt?”  
  
Making another note in the journal, emulating as blue light out of a plate strapped to her arm, she tells him, “Rogers rescued Barnes and his unit of soldiers, and they all made it safely back to their own base in Italy. I’d like you to prevent Rogers from escaping. Allow Hydra to capture him.”  
  
“You got it, boss,” Trex says. He moves a hand over the orb. “Ready?”  
  
“I am.” She smiles at him. “Maybe this will be fun.”  
  
“Unless we fail, and leave a giant tear in the fabric of the universe,” he responds, in jest.  
  
“Precisely.”  
  
Trex lowers his palm and touches the outer membrane of the orb. The image inside it blurs, colors dislocating and swirling around each other. In an instant, the inside of Barnes’ humble hut is replaced with the interior of an aircraft. A younger, clean-shaven Rogers is seated inside, in a colorful suit underneath a brown jacket and protective helmet. His companions, the moustached man piloting the craft and a beautiful woman with dark curls, both have worried frowns twisting their expressions.  
  
“Here we go,” Trex says.  
  
For the official record, Qael states, “first attempt.”  
  
* * *  
  
The plane rattles beneath them, steel and bolts grinding together as the aircraft bounces on the wind. Steve’s never been in an airplane before. He’s never done anything like what he’s about to do, before. There are nerves, surely. He can be a particularly headstrong, _swing-first-think-second_ kind of idiot – Bucky’s words, not his own – but he’s not dumb enough to be free completely of anxiety over what he’s about to do. He’s had barely any training, has no real-life experience to draw from, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.  
  
Bucky isn’t dead. He can’t be. It’s nonsensical, perhaps, but Steve is positive if Bucky had died, he would have felt it. It would have been a phantom pain, like a knife to his gut that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. He would have doubled over with the weight of it, he would have seen his entire future grind to a crushing halt like a movie screen on the insides of his eyelids, he would have despaired endlessly in the idea of going back to their apartment in Brooklyn alone.  
  
This was never their plan. They were supposed to grow old together. Steve never quite believed it, he always assumed one of his ailments would take him before he hit 35 and he’d be the one leaving Bucky alone, but Bucky believed it.  
  
Bucky _promised_. He promised Steve they would be together. That they would save up and move away from the city, maybe to a small cottage in the country where they wouldn’t have to be so careful. Where they could exist without fear, hold hands as they strolled down a dusty lane in the springtime and not worry about someone seeing. Bucky assured him of so many things that haven’t come to pass, yet. So he can’t be dead. He has promises to keep.  
  
Steve doesn’t say any of that out loud, to anyone else. He won’t. They’d have questions, to which Steve does not have acceptable answers.  
  
“This is your transponder,” Peggy says. She holds out a small black rectangle, and Steve takes it. “Activate it when you’re ready, and the signal will lead us strait to you.”  
  
Steve holds it up, gestures with it toward Stark in the pilot’s seat up front. “Are you sure this thing works?”  
  
“It’s been tested more than you, pal,” Stark returns, smooth as always.  
  
Before Steve can summon a clever rejoinder, a loud bang sounds in the space around them, followed quickly by more, and the plane rattles even further than it was, jostling them all violently in their seats. Through the small windows, Steve can see flashes of light. They’re under fire. He should have been expecting the enemy to be monitoring the airspace, and part of him was, but they aren’t nearly as close to the factory as they’d been planning to get before Steve parachuted down to it.  
  
Too late, now. He acts automatically, grabbing his shield and hurrying over to the door.  
  
“Get back here!” Peggy yells, both in anger and to be heard over the barrage of bullets hitting the plane. “We’re taking you all the way in!”  
  
Steve drops down to his backside, sits with his legs dangling out into the open air, and tightens the straps across his chest. “As soon as I’m free, turn this thing around and get the hell outta here!”  
  
Peggy leans over him and snaps, “you can’t give me orders!”  
  
“The hell I can’t! I’m a Captain!” Steve returns, grinning at her. She’ll forgive him for his cheek; or, if she doesn’t, maybe that doesn’t matter anyway. He’s not about to get her and Stark shot out of the sky because _he_ insisted on going after Bucky. This is his mission, not theirs. They’ve never even met Bucky, there is no reason they should risk their lives saving him. Steve, on the other hand, would risk his life to save Bucky every day of the week and, as his Ma used to say, twice on Sundays.  
  
He pulls his goggles down over his eyes and launches himself out of the plane before she can respond or stop him.  
  
The intensity of freefall punches the breath from his lungs. His stomach swoops, his limbs flail in the air as much as he struggles to hold them steady. It’s like the moment in a dream where he misses a step and drops down helplessly into an imaginary void for a second or two before being jolted away, but this time it’s real and it doesn’t end. He reaches, fighting against the force of the air around him, for the right strap, and pulls it as hard as he can. The parachute deploys and then he’s yanked roughly back as it opens above him and abruptly slows his downward momentum. He drifts, then, still falling fast but no longer fatally so, and takes a moment to crane his neck skyward, to watch as the plane avoids a critical hit and turns around in the night sky. They’re safe, at least. That gives Steve some comfort as he floats down.  
  
He lands partly in a tree, the strings of the parachute catching on wayward branches and leaving him dangling helplessly from them like a fish on a hook. Steve pulls a knife from an inside pocket in his jacket and slices himself free, dropping maybe 15 feet down to the hard ground and rolling to cushion his landing. The forest is dark, and silent, but he knows that doesn’t mean he’s safe. He surveils, scans around with eyes narrowed to see better in the shadows, searching for signs of life or directional clues. Turned around as he parachuted down, Steve couldn’t say which direction he’s supposed to be heading. It’s incredibly shortsighted, he notes far too late, that he didn’t bring a compass.  
  
A sound in the distance perks up the hair on the back of his neck. A low rumble, steady and getting closer. _Engines_ , he realizes. Vehicles. Steve hurries in their direction, slinking as soundlessly as he can through the trees, even though it’s unlikely his footfalls would be heard over the racket. After a minute there are lights shining through the trees, yellow and blurred in the evening mist. It’s a motorcade. Steve counts at least five pairs of pounding headlights before he gets close enough to notice the road they’re travelling. He hides, still and silent, behind a large tree trunk as they pass him, and then steps out from behind it and chases.  
  
The last truck in the line has the untied ends of a canvas covering flapping in the wind. Steve jogs to catch up with it and hops easily inside. Two figures sit in the bed of the truck, dressed all in black with headgear that covers their entire faces. Steve wasn’t expecting that, and his heart skips a panicked beat.  
  
“Fellas,” he says politely, his mother’s influence rearing its head for just a moment before sense returns to him.  
  
They rush at him, and he easily knocks them out and tosses them out the back of the truck, one by one.  
  
Once he’s alone, Steve settles, leaning back against the vibrating metal wall of the cab, and waits. _I’m on my way, Buck_ , he thinks. _Just a little longer_.  
  
The factory is massive. High, imposing concrete walls, glaring blue lights, a field of tanks lined in stationary rows like tombstones in a graveyard. Sneaking in isn’t as difficult as Steve was expecting. In the flurry of activity, of guards and agents and vehicles coming and going, he manages to proceed undetected and he handily puts down any guards he comes into contact with.  
  
He thinks, in a fleeting, rare moment of pride, that he’s never won this many fights in his life. It’s the serum, certainly. Back in Brooklyn he wasn’t six-foot-two and nearly 200 pounds of muscles and sinew and broad shoulders. But maybe there’s something more than chemistry flowing through his veins as he punches and blocks and uses his weight to subdue his adversaries. Maybe because Bucky is near, and Steve missed him so much it ached, there’s extra iron in his scientifically altered blood.  
  
It can’t be more than 20 minutes before he locates a room filled with cages; the kind animals might be locked in at a low-budget zoo, not human beings. There are dozens of men, could be hundreds, and Steve’s gut clenches. He knocks out a guard, standing on the top of one of the cages, and reaches down for his keys.  
  
Underneath, the men locked inside stare up at him in shock.  
  
“Who’re you supposed to be?” one asks.  
  
Steve is confused, and the remembers the stars and stripes on his shield. Definitely not standard military issue. “Um … Captain America,” he answers, feeling stupid about it as they peer curiously at him from under collectively furrowed brows.  
  
He ignores the twinges of embarrassment, of a lifetime of inadequacy, that lick at his skin. He climbs swiftly down, unlocking the door and swinging it open to free them. He opens the rest of the cages, down the line of the room, until the last of the men are crowding out into the open space of the hallway.  
  
“Is there anybody else?” he asks, to the first group he’d encountered. “I’m looking for a Sergeant James Barnes.”  
  
An older man with a thick moustache regards him suspiciously, and another, with an accent Steve doesn’t recognize, tells him, “there’s an isolation ward in the factory. No one’s ever come back from it.”  
  
The implication puts a heavy stone of dread in Steve’s stomach, but he pushes past it. “Alright. The tree-line is Northwest, 80 yards past the gate. Get out fast and give ‘em hell. I’ll meet you guys in the clearing with anybody else I find.”  
  
“Wait.”  
  
Steve looks back, into the eyes of the dark-skinned man who had first spoken to him.  
  
“You know what you’re doing?” the man asks, what appears to be sincere concern on his face.  
  
“Yeah.” Steve shrugs, and jokes to make himself feel more capable, because he knows they won’t understand what he’s talking about. “I knocked out Adolf Hitler over 200 times.”  
  
He smiles to himself at the confused expressions that take over their faces, and he leaves them. In normal circumstances – as normal as anything can ever be in the midst of a war – he would stay with them and help them fight. Instead he hurries away from them, ducks down a long, dark hall, and continues his search. Outside, the sound of guns and chaos starts almost immediately, as the freed prisoners storm the yard. Steve tries not to flinch with every rattling explosion.  
  
He finds Bucky, thankfully, _blessedly_ alive, in a chamber off the office of what seems to be an important official. He’s strapped to a table, and he’s mumbling incoherently, name, rank and serial number as is protocol for if they’re ever captured, but he’s alive. Steve’s heart leaps, gut twists, skin prickles in equal parts chilling horror and compressing relief, as he rushes to his … Bucky. To _his_ Bucky. Alive and still retaining all his limbs and not bloodied or injured as far as Steve can see.  
  
“Bucky, oh my god,” Steve gasps anyway, emotions flooding him. He wants to scream, to weep in fear and joy, to haul Bucky up and cradle him in his arms. He knew Bucky couldn’t be dead. He rips the straps off him, despising the dazed look on Bucky’s face. They did _something_ to him. Drugged him, maybe. “It’s me, it’s Steve.”  
  
_Please know me_ , Steve begs in his own mind. He couldn’t bear it if Bucky didn’t know him.  
  
Some clarity finally makes its way to Bucky’s stormy blue eyes as he blinks and they slip back into focus on what’s right in front of him instead of invisible horrors far away. “Steve?” he asks, in a slur, with a wobbly smile.  
  
Steve never cared much for church but he’d fall to his knees and thank God and the Saints and all the angels for that smile, if they asked him to.  
  
  
“Come on.” Steve reaches down to help him up. Bucky is heavier than usual, his body still limp and making Steve do most of the work to heave him off the table.  
  
“Steve,” Bucky repeats.  
  
Steve cups Bucky’s face briefly in his hand. His skin is so cold. “I thought you were dead.”  
  
Bucky is staring in the general direction of Steve’s chest, a frown wrinkling his forehead. “I thought you were smaller.”  
  
A small explosion from nearby makes Steve looks up, concerned. He puts his arm around the middle of Bucky’s back, supporting him. “C’mon.”  
  
Bucky stumbles but manages to walk with Steve taking some of his weight and tugging him along, trying to be gentle and mindful of Bucky’s weakness but needing to get them out of here as quickly as he can before the whole building goes up in flames.  
  
“What happened to you?” Bucky asks.  
  
“I joined the Army,” Steve says simply, knowing he’ll have to provide a better answer later. Bucky won’t like that he cracked a joke instead of giving him a real explanation, but now isn’t the time for that conversation. It will be long and complicated and they don’t have room for it, just now.  
  
“Did it hurt?”  
  
“A little.”  
  
“Is it permanent?”  
  
“So far.”  
  
* * *  
  
Beeping.  
  
Slow. Steady. He counts 10 of them, each with seconds of silence between.  
  
Lights, too. Bright ones. He squints, loses time in the blur of it. Shadows come, taking over.  
  
* * *  
  
There are voices.  
  
They sound far away, muffled, as if they’re speaking through a thick pane of glass. He can’t make out any words. It’s too bright in the room, again, for him to see properly. He tries to call out, to scream, but no sound emerges from his sandpaper throat before the shadows return.  
  
* * *  
  
“Time to wake, Captain.”  
  
A near-silent groan tears from his throat. He squints, again. The lights are still bright, but maybe just a little duller. His head hurts. Aches, really.  
  
“You’ve been resting long enough.”  
  
He blinks, swallows, tries to look around. Slowly, the room filters into focus. Metal floors, concrete walls, flashing lights. He moves, limbs screaming at him as if they’ve been immobilized for weeks and are just now remembering how to function.  
  
They are, he realizes, with a kick of his heartbeat. He can’t move his arms, when he tries. He’s bolted down. Upright, on a steel slab, but restrained.  
  
He grunts, fighting against it.  
  
“Relax, we would not want you hurting yourself.”  
  
He blinks again, finally locates the voice. In the corner of the room sits a small man with round glasses, peering at him through them.  
  
“Who are you?” he growls, and then coughs, his throat unused for who knows how long.  
  
“That’s unimportant,” the man says. He stands, takes a few steps closer, although still keeping a safe distance. “Do you know who _you_ are?”  
  
Steve stares at him. “What?”  
  
“You suffered quite a nasty bump on the head. I want to make sure your memories are intact. What is your name, soldier?”  
  
“Fuck you,” Steve growls at him, tugging still at the restraints. They’re beginning to dig painfully into his wrists. “Where am I?”  
  
“What do you remember?”  
  
“About _what_?” Steve tugs again and feels the metal cuff slice into his left wrist. Drops of blood trickle down his skin.  
  
“That laceration will heal fully, in less than an hour,” the man says, pointing to it. “There will be no scar tissue. We’ve been testing you. Your body’s abilities, its rapid regeneration. I’m ashamed to admit your serum is far superior, to the one we injected into Sergeant Barnes.”  
  
Steve’s head spins. He tries, and fails, to make sense of that. “Who are you?” he asks again, shouting it this time.  
  
“Tell me the last thing you remember, and I will give you my name.”  
  
He thinks. Searches his mind, wades through the blankness left there. They’ve been drugging him, he assumes. Like they did to … to Bucky. Who Steve found strapped similarly to a table, in a back room of the factory. “I broke into a Hydra base,” he says, “on a rescue mission for the 107th. I freed the men from cages. I found …”  
  
“Sergeant Barnes.”  
  
“Where is he?”  
  
“Not here, I’m afraid. He managed to evade our capture, as did the rest of the prisoners you unleashed. But we apprehended you, Captain. A much better get for us than any of those men.” The man walks back to his corner, where he’d been sitting when Steve came to. He makes notes on a clipboard. “That is enough for now, I think. You’ll need to be rested.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“You’ll see.”  
  
The man heads to the door. Steve yells after him, “you said you’d tell me who you are!”  
  
He turns back, a small smile gracing his rodent-like features. “Dr. Arnim Zola,” he says, and then he’s gone, and Steve is bathed once again in darkness.  
  
* * *  
  
He never ceases struggling. He screams at them, he tries to warn them what will happen if they don’t let him go, but it’s futile. And days pass – maybe weeks as Steve loses track of time in a windowless room – and nothing does happen. No one comes for him. He can’t get free, and they are impervious to his threats.  
  
They continue testing him. Sometimes the things they do are painful, sometimes not. Steve goes numb to it. Sometimes a man named Schmidt, who seems to be in charge, comes in and talks to him, and Steve never gives him satisfactory answers, and that earns him a hard slap across the face that leaves his cheek burning.  
  
He craves dreadfully to know about Bucky. If he truly escaped before Steve got himself captured, if he’s alright, if he’s even alive. If his captors know the answers to those questions, they won’t tell him. It hurts worse than anything else they could do to him.  
  
* * *  
  
He could not begin to estimate how much time has passed before the opportunity he’s been hoping for finally presents itself. He’d been taken for another set of x-rays, subdued with an injection since they have to remove his restraints, and as the drug is wearing off, Steve notices the cuff on his left wrist hasn’t been fastened as tightly as before. It takes work, to twist his hand slowly back and forth before he can wriggle it out of the metal half-circle, but he finally manages it. He rips the other cuffs from his hand and ankles and he’s off like a shot, sprinting down hallways, sirens and shouts and red flashing lights accompanying his dash to the exit, putting down guards and agents when he encounters them as easily as he had in his initial raid. In a blur of noise and activity and his heart thundering in his ribcage, he finds himself back in the woods, away from the base, _free_.  
  
Nearly naked, weak from a lack of food, lost and cold, it’s days before he locates a nearby town. Unsure of whether it’s safe to ask a stranger for help, he waits until nightfall, hidden in a dark alley behind some bins, and then breaks into a general store. He finds clothes and supplies, food, water, and a compass. He shoves enough to sustain him for a few days into a canvas duffel bag, and takes off, heading Southwest.  
  
Now that he’s outdoors, he can keep track of days passing. It takes him three days, stopping only to sleep, to walk the several hundred miles between his starting point and their Italian base. He’s ragged, near exhaustion and completely out of food, but the time the camp _finally_ appears at the edge of the wood. He barely makes it to the outer edges of their encampment before he collapses, to his knees in the dirt, with the world spinning around him.  
  
“Who are you?” a scared voice demands. Steve knows without knowing that there is a gun pointed at him suddenly.  
  
“Steve Rogers,” he splutters, falling down onto his hands. He looks up, just for long enough for the man to see his face, before the last of his strength evaporates and he’s flat on the ground.  
  
Through a haze, he hears the shouting, feels his limbs being jostled, as consciousness slips away.  
  
_Bucky_ , he asks, just before he succumbs to the darkness. Maybe he doesn’t say it out loud.  
  
* * *  
  
Beeping, steady and slow, just like the last time he’d come back to consciousness in an unfamiliar place. Steve blinks, gritting his teeth as the room keeps on spinning for a moment, before eventually it slows and he can take in his surroundings. Medical equipment, his body under a white sheet and matching blanket. This time, he isn’t strapped down. His limbs feel heavy, but he can move them if he tries hard enough. And the person in the room with him isn’t a Nazi scientist. It’s Howard Stark. Asleep, at the moment, slumped backwards in a chair with his head tilted awkwardly to one side and his mouth hanging open and a line of drool rolling down his chin.  
  
Steve tries to speak, tries to say his name aloud, but all that comes out is an airy grunt.  
  
It’s enough. Stark jumps, startled by the noise and then gapes in Steve’s direction like he’s witnessing a Christian miracle. “Rogers,” he breathes.  
  
“Hi,” Steve rasps, managing a real word this time.  
  
“You’re awake,” Stark says, scrubbing the saliva from his chin and leaping up out of his seat. “Carter!” he bellows loudly. “He’s awake!”  
  
The sudden noise pounds like a hundred hammers in Steve’s head.  
  
“We’ve been watching you in shifts, me and Pegs and some of the others,” Stark explains to Steve, before turning back towards the door and deafeningly hollering Peggy’s name again.  
  
“I heard you!” Peggy’s voice yells back, seconds before she bursts into the room, with messy hair and a hassled, but relieved expression on her face. “Steve!”  
  
He smiles weakly at her, and she rushes over to his side. She takes his left hand in one of hers, and presses her other to his forehead, smiling down at him with flushed cheeks and tears in her eyes. Steve’s mother used to do that all the time, checking for fever.  
  
“Thank the Lord,” she whispers. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Alive,” he answers, his voice still a feeble croak. “Not great, otherwise.”  
  
“Get the doctor,” she says to Stark, and he nods and hurries out of the room. Turning back to Steve, she says, “you’re safe, now. And you’ll be just fine.”  
  
Her hand slides down his face, cupping his cheek.  
  
“Bucky,” he rasps.  
  
Peggy’s forehead twists into a frown, and Steve panics.  
  
“ _No_ ,” she says quickly, gripping his hand to still him. “No, he’s alive. I didn’t mean to scare you, he’s alive, Steve, he’s alright. He made it back with the others.”  
  
“Oh.” Steve breathes the most all-encompassing sigh of relief of his entire life. It washes over him, like warm waves on sand, from the days he and Bucky could sneak away for an afternoon and dip their feet into the ocean. But then Peggy’s initial reaction returns to his mind, and he looks back into her deep brown eyes. “What is it, then?”  
  
“Phillips locked him up.”  
  
“ _Why_?”  
  
“Because he tried to go after you. The other men told us what happened at the factory. They had to drag him away kicking and screaming, he kept trying to run back into the building even though half of it was on fire. He nearly cost everyone else the chance to escape. And once they arrived back here, and Phillips decided against a second rescue mission, Barnes wouldn’t listen. He deserted his command and tried to head back to Austria on his own. I’m so sorry, I tried to stop it. He was warned twice, the third time Phillips didn’t have much of a choice. He was going to get people killed.”  
  
Steve’s throat closes, suddenly he can’t swallow. He can see his own reflection in the shine of her eyes, and he looks anguished.  
  
“I’m so sorry we didn’t come for you,” Peggy continues, wrapping both hands now around his one. “I tried on that front as well, but Phillips … Howard and I had already defied him once. If we did it again, he would have sent us back to London.”  
  
Steve shakes his head and tries to tell her not to feel guilty about that, but Stark arrives back with the doctor before he can. They’re ushered briskly out of the room, and Steve is one again the subject of a stranger’s probing hands and examining eyes, as he grits his teeth and tries not to cry over the idea of Bucky alone in a cell, thinking the worst.  
  
On the condition that Peggy gives her word Bucky will be told Steve is alive and back on site, Steve allows the medical staff to fuss over him for a day and a half. He _is_ weak, energy sources depleted and likely only the serum itself keeping him alive by the time he made it back here. In the afternoon of the second day, he pleads to be allowed to go for a walk, and permission is reluctantly granted to him. He imagines they all could guess where he’s headed, as he takes Peggy by the arm to steady himself and leaves the infirmary wing still hooked up to an I.V. bag on a rolling pole.  
  
“What are they going to do with him?” he asks Peggy, as they walk.  
  
“I don’t know,” she answers grimly. “His actions could be worthy of a court-martial. But Phillips does have a heart, underneath all that gruff. He could likely be convinced, by the person who rescued over 100 men.”  
  
“If he doesn’t court-martial me, too,” Steve grumbles. “Was he pissed, when you and Stark got back?”  
  
“Yes,” Peggy says, and doesn’t elaborate.  
  
Steve wasn’t aware there was a jail on the base. It’s a dismal place, lit dimly with lanterns, iron cages similar to the ones he’d encountered at the Hydra base in a row along a wall. There are four of them, and they’re all vacant expect the very last one, where a body is curled into a ball on the floor. It’s facing away from them, just the expanse of a back in a green shirt visible, and the sight grips inside Steve’s chest.  
  
“Bucky,” he breathes.  
  
“He’s with me,” Peggy tells the pair of armed guards, and they nod shortly and stand down.  
  
Steve releases his grip on Peggy’s elbow and limps further into the room. His footsteps startle the man on the ground; he leaps up unsteadily, and his face crumples the moment he sees Steve.  
  
“I didn’t believe it,” Bucky breathes. His face and clothes are dirty, but otherwise he appears unharmed. In any case, he’s in better shape than the last time Steve saw him.  
  
“I swore I wasn’t lying,” Peggy’s voice says reproachfully, clearly annoyed that Bucky hadn’t trusted her.  
  
Steve steps in closer, and Bucky stumbles toward the bars so their hands can touch. Bucky’s fingertips against his is the most wonderful thing Steve has felt in weeks, even though he can’t pull Bucky into his arms and hold him the way he’s longing to. “Buck,” he says, voice wavering pitifully.  
  
Bucky stares at him, blinking quickly, eyes going glassy as Steve watches. He still looks like he scarcely believes what’s right in front of his own face. Steve knows the feeling.  
  
“Can we have a moment alone?” he asks. He looks over his shoulder, in time to catch Peggy hesitating. “C’mon, you know he’s not dangerous. He’s in here for doing the same damn thing you and I did.”  
  
Peggy nods, maybe reluctantly, and orders the guards to wait outside the door. She follows them, glancing back at Steve with a look in her eyes that Steve would be worried to recognize, in circumstances where he didn’t have much more pressing matters to think about.  
  
“I was sure you were dead.”  
  
Steve looks back, and tears have filled Bucky’s blue eyes, bulging over the rims. He reaches a hand through the bars, cards his fingers through Bucky’s dirty hair. Bucky whimpers softly, the sound slipping out no matter how hard he’s trying to be strong, and Steve can tell he’s fighting for it.  
  
“Stevie,” he mumbles, his fingers reach, gathering handfuls of Steve’s hospital gown, their bodies flush together save for the iron bars between them. Steve presses his face to those bars so he can kiss Bucky’s forehead in the space between two of them.  
  
“I know the feeling. Not great, is it?”  
  
“The fucking worst.” Bucky blinks up at him. “I tried. I tried so hard to get back to you. They threw me in here.”  
  
“I know.” Steve scratches his scalp and Bucky shivers, eyes slipping closed. Steve wonders if he was ever examined, checked for whatever Hydra might have done to him in that horrible place. He wonders if anyone even thought to ask. “It’s not your fault, Buck. I’m here, now, I’m okay. And we’re gonna get you out of here.”  
  
Bucky nods, and Steve cups his cheek, angles his chin up so he can press a kiss to Bucky’s lips with cold metal pressing into the sides of his face.  
  
“We will,” he whispers. He means it, down to every chemically altered cell in his body. He’ll make it happen, no matter what. Like Bucky, Steve had spent years wishing for so many things that have not yet come to pass. Like Bucky, Steve has promises to keep.  
  
* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am usually wary of promising a posting schedule for WIPs because inevitably I will fail to meet it, but it is my hope to post this fic once a week, on Saturdays. Wish me luck

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) if you want!


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